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School Counseling Program offers Innovative Model Introduced last year, the Assumption College Graduate School program in School Counseling was created in response to current education reform policies. As with other changes in licensing, testing, and continuing education for K-12 personnel, guidance counselors and school psychologists must now respond to a shift in the direction of their field. The school counseling profession has taken on a more systematic focus to respond to student needs in academic, career, and social domains. This shift has resulted in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts proposing a new model for the delivery of guidance services. To assist this population, which according to national demographic information will be retiring at a significant rate in the next 5-10 years, Assumption has developed a unique educational model to meet the demand that currently exists and to assist those counselors in the field in keeping their credentials current. Under this program, school counselors have the opportunity to attend free professional development workshops at Assumption where they interact and share ideas with current graduate students who are enrolled in the School Counseling program. The counselors can earn six professional development points (PDPs) by attending each workshop. Counselors can also use the workshops toward graduate credit at a reasonable tuition fee. In Massachusetts, school counselors need to renew their certification every five years. These workshops are responding to the need for continuing education of guidance counselors who need to learn what the new model entails and the knowledge it requires to facilitate. One of the key areas that the workshops address is the creation and design of a curriculum for guidance counselors. Study halls have been eliminated in Massachusetts, which gives counselors a unique opportunity to implement a guidance curriculum within a classroom as opposed to an individual appointment with a student. Counselors can address certain areas such as career preparation or violence prevention to a group of students within a classroom setting. The workshops help prepare counselors to be comfortable and knowledgeable in the areas of teaching and curriculum design, which might be areas they were unfamiliar with previously. In the workshop format, school counselors are able to bring “real world” experience and examples from the field to share with graduate students. These workshops also allow counselors to stay current with new theories and methodologies. The workshops are offered multiple times during each semester and are taught by Assumption’s Graduate School faculty. Carole Christensen and Maria Ulloa-Hancock, both counselors in the Fitchburg, MA public schools, attended one of the workshops on February 9, 2006. “This program is excellent. It’s good for us to get out of our own environment,” said Christensen. “The questions and topics raised in the workshops make us think about what we’re doing in our line of work.” “This particular program fits our needs very well,” said Ulloa-Hancock. “It gives us a sense of the big picture. Often times we are performing “emergency services” in our day-to-day roles and don’t have much time for reflection on the nature of our profession. The workshops also educate us on all the cutting edge information in our field.” Another positive outcome of the workshop format is being able to expose a large number of high school guidance counselors to Assumption’s campus. By giving guidance counselors an insider’s view of Assumption’s programs, faculty, staff and students, this workshop model can have a profound impact on the information they relay back to their high school students about the College. As Ulloa-Hancock puts it, “The quality of this program speaks to the quality of Assumption.” The program has received excellent evaluations and has attracted school counselors from as far away as Hyannis and Beverly, MA as well as other New England states. In addition to the positive effect this program has on admissions, it also generates future school placement and internship sites for School Counseling graduate students. The Master of Arts in School Counseling program welcomed its first class in the fall of 2005. The major objective of the program is to prepare students for a career as a school counselor. The program is designed to meet Massachusetts Department of Education initial licensing requirements for school guidance counselors (Pre K–8 or 5-12). At its core, the program provides students with the theoretical and practical skills and competencies that are required to be an effective school counselor. Theory, research, and practice are integrated in a sequential program designed to meet the challenges of providing comprehensive counseling programs in contemporary elementary, middle, and high school settings. The curriculum includes a strong counseling core with an emphasis on theoretical models, concepts, research-based prevention, intervention strategies, and outcomes based models. Specific competencies needed for counselors in the school setting including: problem solving, consultation and collaboration skills, knowledge of evidence based prevention, and intervention strategies are emphasized. Coursework is coordinated with lab, pre-practicum, and practicum experiences to provide the student with multiple opportunities to gain knowledge, and to develop, refine, and evaluate their counseling skills within a school setting. For more information about the workshops or the Master of Arts in School Counseling program please contact Mary Ann Mariani at 508-767-7087 or Charles Virga at 508-767-5496.
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February, 2006 - Do you have fond memories of your high school guidance counselor? Hopefully, he or she knew you well, was able to assist you with your college choice, and offered you a great personal recommendation. If this was not your experience, you might feel better knowing that changes in this profession are underway and Assumption College is leading the effort.